This team sucks. And although Douglas, Turner and Thomas all were not good. Why do we have to play 5 games to see them cut? What can we do in week 6 to improve the OL? I’m not getting the timing.

Always Squealing,

Piggy

I think it’s an easy answer actually. First of all, it’s kind of unlikely that we had to go so far into our depth on the O-line. Our top 5 guys have never been on the field together this season (Albert, Tunsil, Pouncey, Bushrod and James) Our next 2 backups were basically Steen and Urbik, and Steen was also injured, so the last minute replacements had to step in when Tunsil slipped on the soap in the shower. So basically, we had a 3rd string OG playing LT (Billy Turner), 3rd string OG at LG (Dallas Thomas), a rusty Mike Pouncey in at C, and the usual starters on the right side, Bushrod and the struggling James. You have to admit, it was a strange set of circumstances with Albert out and for Tunsil to get injured right before the game. That set all kinds of bad things in motion.

I would have thought Thomas and Turner were serviceable as deep depth, and I’m sure Gase and the coaches thought so too. Most of their evaluation was done in pre season, these guys don’t see a lot of snaps in practice, so it was basically what they did against other teams 2nd and 3rd stringers, and apparently, they did well enough against the lesser talent to be 3rd on the depth chart. I would think most teams would be in trouble if they had to start two 3rd stringers on the O-line against Tennessee’s talented defensive front. I don’t blame Gase for playing them, keeping them on the roster, and I think it’s great that after seeing how poorly they played, he instantly cut them. How many years did Philbin keep them? Gase cut them as soon as they proved unworthy of a roster spot. That’s the right way to do it. If you think about it, how many teams are going to do well with a 3rd string LT, a 3rd string LG? My thought would be not many.

I’m sure we’re scanning what’s available, and have been even before we made those cuts. OT Sam Young will take one of the spots, the other has yet to be filled. We get Chris Culliver back in 2 weeks, meaning the Fest game. The way we get better is by getting healthy, and that means Albert back at LT, Tunsil at LG, Pouncey at C, and maybe Anthony Steen when he gets healthy gets a look at RG, and maybe Bushrod replaces Ja’Wuan James if he continues to struggle.
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from Wyo

Q – So after a somewhat horrible start the Fins have 4 home games and a bye.Tennessee has played tuff (Kicked the shit out of us)Pittsburgh will feast on our secondaryBills will be tough us as usualThe Stej are like looking into a mirror (yes that is pathetic!)So at 1-4, what is your take on the rest of the season?

I have to admit Wyo, I don’t know what to expect from this team anymore. I just don’t know if this team can get it right. This game against the Steelers, who I believe may be one of 2 teams in the AFC that have a legit shot of being in the Super Bowl this year (Patriots are the other), we have no business being on the field with the Steelers. For some reason, this is the type of game we might win, because it’s silly! The Steelers lost one of their very talented receivers to suspension (Martavis Bryant), but they have Le’veon Bell, Antonio Brown (possibly the NFL’s best WR), and now WR Sammie Coates seems to have emerged. They have a young wild west TE named Jesse James, who’s also showing to be a decent receiving TE.

The Steelers are scoring 28 PPG, and are only allowing 18.6 PPG. We have scored 17.6 PPG, and have allowed 24 PPG. Again, we just have no business being on the field with that team. By all means we should get clobbered ugly, but for some reason, I think we hang tough in this one, and even pull it out. If we do, does that turn the season around? It might, but then I could just as easily see us getting mauled by Rex and his Bills, so I don’t know bud, I just don’t have any confidence in prognosticating for this team anymore.
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from UK

Q – Hey Mike,

My question will be in 2 parts.

1/ Can you recommend any really heavy medication to dull the pain?

2/ Our O has been turgid for so long it makes me hurl. Between our coaching staff being predictable and bailing on the run for another season, an O line which acts either as turnstiles or penalty generators, a gifted set of receivers who can’t separate (except for Juice) and our much-flawed QB, we have the biggest collection of drive-killers (if you are reading this OD, please capitalise drive-killers in your head) ever assembled on that side of the ball.

On the other side, we have a D designed to rush the passer that rarely gets there (coach decided Wake needs his mid-game naps to stay sharp?!?), a wide 9 attack which creates runway sized holes for opponents to run into and LBs and 2ndary which can’t tackle or take the ball away.

This is another, and arguably the biggest, clusterfuck yet in terms of failing to deliver what was promised – I still think we will get more than 1W this time around. My 2nd question …… when will all this end?

Hey UK, as a matter of fact, I can recommend something. Two things, actually.

Don’t watch the Dolphins play anymore this season.

Get a nice bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey

Recently, I’ve been coming home as grumpy as a Dolphins fan, from work, and I’ve sat down, opened the bottle of Jameson, and taken a couple a shots, I’m not a sipper myself. Takes a few minutes, but I can feel the anger and frustration melting out of my body, and then I just feel mellow, chill, and ready to take on the world again.

Like most Dolphins fans, I watch, and I feel like I’m watching the same team we’ve watched for the last few years, except now, our defense is even worse than the big time chokers they were, now they suck from the get-go, sparing us the late game disappointment when they just have to make a hold. The offense, now filled with young, talented WR can’t do anything. Parker not looking like the stud we thought we had, although it’s possible it’s the Tannehill effect.

Speaking of the Tannehill effect. Think about his success, or at least what looked like a promising start in his first through third years. In 2012, Tannehill had Brian Hartline as his leading receiver, Davone Bess second, and Anthony Fasano third. But, and this is huge, 1802 yards rushing from Reggie Bush, DTinfinity, Lamar Miller, and RT himself. In 2013, it was Mike Wallace and Brian Hartline, and the rushing fell to under 1500 yards, 1440, which included 238 for RT himself. Year 3, 2014, we went back up in rushing, exceeding the 1800 we got in ’13, up to 1872, and Tannehill had 311 of those yards. In 2014, back down under 1500, just barely, at 196, and Tannehill had 141 yards. Last year was Juice all the time with a smattering of Rishard Matthews, Jordan Cameron, Kenny Stills, Devante Parker, but mostly Juice with 110 receptions, the other 255 distributed among the receivers I mentioned and the RB’s.

This year after 5 games, we have 362 yards rushing. If you extrapolate that over a full season, we’re looking at a low of 1158 yards. Tannehill this, Tannehill that! Yes, he’s not the best QB in the NFL, maybe he’s at best right now in the lower middle. So WHY, WHY do we put it all on #17’s back week after week, with a leaky O-line as per usghe, and expect anything good to come of it? WHY?????

We simply need to run the football. We have 2 young backs who would love a nice workload, and we should give it to them. Heck, we have an old RB that would love to get a lot of carries, and revive his career, and show the NFL he can still play. Play the game like teams who don’t ask their QB to win games. The Denver Broncos are one team like that, and the Houston Texans are another. Both teams have over 500 yards rushing at this point, and neither team relies heavily on their QB’s, Trevor Siemian for Denver and Brock Osweiler for Houston. Both teams have better defenses than we do, but if we ran the ball, and granted, you have to run effectively. I think if you make a commitment to run, odds are you will have success. If we can start running the ball 25-30 times a game, I think the defense will be better, and I think Ryan Tannehill will be better too. Ryan Tannehill won’t be Aaron Rodgers, and our defense won’t be Denver’s defense either , but the team would likely be more effective with that approach.

As to when this spiraling shit-show ends, I hope soon, because as each week goes by, I’m starting to look for alternatives on Sunday, and honestly, if it weren’t for FF, I’d probably ditch football altogether in the near future. Time for Gase to get his shit together, and actually devise a game plan that gives us a chance to win. He’s benched a lot of players, cut a bunch more, but meanwhile, he hasn’t shown he’s a better coach than the guy on the opposite sideline yet. Not once, the win against Cleveland included. Time for that to change!
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If that’s directed to me, then I’ll call bullshit on that too. What I’m saying is other players and positions are being talked about as well. YOU keep saying it’s otherwise. Does ‘HWSNBM’ get talked about more? Sure…he’s our franchise QB…comes with the position. Is it all that’s talked about? Nope.

herd,
He was a noodle arm, but at least he could avoid a sack once a year and read a defense….so he’s twice the QB Tannehill is! Lol
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And you’re right, of course. Blogs become very repetitive…probably because there’s only so much to talk about anyway. I mean can 30 people talk about football daily and NOT repeat shit? Football is not that deep. It’s why I take breaks sometimes. Every blog I visit is the same.

okay, so let’s talk about some other stuff then like the retreads and rentals on defense. Williams won’t be here next season, J Jones won’t be here either. Neither will Branch. Doubt Fede sticks as well. There’s a good chance Cam Wake is also gone even with another year on his contract. At LB, Misi is most likely gone. Good chance Jenkins is too. Thomas SHOULD be gone at safety.
So, that’s going to leave some major holes on the defensive side of the ball but these guys are all just bodies anyway.
I’d be okay with bringing in young guys who can be developed thru the draft and get a couple udfa’s after the draft who can fill in the roster at one of the defensive positions as backups and go from there rather than bringing in the retreads and rentals year after year. Oh yeah, and Maxwell should be gone too.
So, we’re in a heap of hurt here but we’ve not done a good job of bringing in the talent thru the draft like we should have. This draft needs to be heavy on the defensive side of the ball if it can be but we also need to guard against just taking guys on that side just because we need bodies. That seemed to be the modus operandi of a previous regime and that tactic hasn’t worked out very well.

and to reply to my own post I want to add something. we brought in Williams, J Jones, and Branch along the d-line as starters. None of those guys have played for us in the past so they have no “chemistry’ with anyone on the defensive line either; except for Jones playing in DET with Suh. Top that off with a new DC and yet another defensive scheme and it’s tough to get anything consistent.
I really expected more from the defense than we’ve seen but, at the same time, I was wrong in thinking that way because any time you have that many new pieces playing together with a rookie DC who’s not familiar with any of these guys I should have expected as much.
Williams, J Jones, Branch, Alonso, Maxwell, Howard and Abdul-Quddus all new guys on the defense. Just like anything else it’s going to take time to gel when you’ve got a bunch of new guys together and then you’ve got the rookie DC trying to work things out.

Lou,
I kinda cringe when I hear stuff like: “This needs to be a defense heavy draft.” This team has plenty of needs on the offensive side of the ball too. The draft should always be about gathering better talent….not solely about filling perceived needs. Or, at least I don’t think that should be your primary priority. Things change so quickly in the NFL these days. A position of strength one year can easily become a position of weakness the next. I want them to just find talent…wherever it is…and then develop that talent. That’s another issue I have with this team. They have been terrible at finding…and then developing talent.

I agree that we shouldn’t just be filling holes for the sake of it. Like I said, that was one of Ireland’s biggest flaws as a GM and the Will Davis pick was a perfect example of that. So was the DT3 pick.
If you go back and reread what I wrote I said it needs to be a defensive heavy draft IF you can go that way but we need to guard against doing so just to fill holes. First round is solid on the defensive side and we should have a shot at a solid prospect on that side of the ball. May even be Garret but also Tabor, Humphrey or Foster as well.
In the 2nd rd they could probably do better if they took someone like Elfein or Pocic or maybe even Jordan Leggett. So, I’m not saying draft defense at the expense of bringing in more talent elsewhere. We need offensive talent on the line and at TE but we shouldn’t be picking up wr’s early.

people (fans) don’t want a Pennington anymore. they don’t want the steady guy who can get you down the field on nice drives and score; eating up the clock. they want the flashy guys who have the guns for arms and who run with the ball.

lol…I wasn’t really meaning to get into the love of Chad thing…just was using it as an example to prove a point. He was blamed for things, yet what did he have for receivers? Bess, Camirillo and that deep threat Ted Ginn…who also took up a lot of blog space along with his family because apparently it was his fault he got drafted at what, 8? Just like HWSNBM…. Players get bashed all the time, coaches do too. Last year and year before it was almost a constant thing about Philbin until he was fired. I didn’t see anyone saying a thing about how boring and repetitive it was. So again, just was wondering why this is?

I don’t blame the losing all on Tannehill, there is PLENTY of blame to go around. I”m on record saying I think we are better than what we are playing. And what about Dion FF???? Is he still on the team? What a total waste of a human being…now if I was going to spew some hatred on a player….he’s the one.

This total bs. This guy is an idiot and the whole article full of bs. How could you not write an article that just blames the qb. What foolishness is this blaming the whole team…..And they get paid for this

I get bored with a lot of the same ole same ole bashing of players, coaches, GMs, owners, the stadium built on Indian burial grounds, curses… did I miss anything? LOL

So do I. But it’s the nature of a blog I think, everyone wants to get their thoughts in even if you’re saying the same as someone else. For me, the repetition is the draft….I think because the offseason is longer and I can’t get invested in a player until they’re on the team. So that’s tedious for me. But its what you guys do and part of the blog.

And while I’m at it, little johnny martin…another complete waste and worth some hatred spewed his way. Not only was he a WASTED pick, he caused so much upheaval, distractions, people fired over it, etc. ..pisses me off thinking about it.

Tim,
Your comment about how you give up if that OL starts for us, and we still can’t win…kinda makes me scratch my head. Tunsil is an unproven rookie, and he has not looked good. Pouncey is meh….way overrated to me. Bushrod has been, possibly, our worst OL so far this year. I think James and Albert are good and can be very good. I get that James has not been consistent and Albert is hurt often, but they both have the ability to be quite good. I’d say 2 or 3 of those pieces are debatable or questionable…at least at this point.
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These guys need some help from the guys around them and the coaches. No way am I trusting in that 5 to carry this team. I just hope they can hold their own right now. Maybe if they can stay in the lineup together they may be looking good by season’s end. Now? Probably not.

I probably like Lou’s guy as much as anyone. Watson is small and hasn’t impressed this year. Same with Kizer and Kaaya. I liked the UNC QB yesterday but will have to see how he finishes. I have to agree with Omar. College QBs are coming out way too quick today. All of them need at least 2 full years starting and one year of sitting before they have the experience to play in the NFL. I think true freshman QBs need that third year if they don’t sit. A very uninspiring group this year. I would take the Iowa QB early to middle of the 3rd if he’s there though.